Currently, the government’s decile scheme aims to provide additional funding to those schools recognised as having higher proportions of students from low-socioeconomic communities. Schools are grouped into 10 decile bands on the basis of household incomes, household crowding, parental qualification, parental occupation and recipients of a benefit, which is then compared nationally across schools. While this does enable funding to be dispersed to schools with a high percentage of students from low socioeconomic communities, it does not enable the accurate representation of each individual’s situation within each school. Additionally, as only 10% of schools can be allotted into each decile bracket, a school potentially risks shifting upwards a decile if another school’s decile declines – thus losing funding despite a community’s situation remaining constant.

Accordingly, there is a need for our government’s education funding scheme to better assist students requiring funding, and a need to better mitigate the stigma surrounding this issue. Debate is likely to continue to ensure the government’s policies create appropriate frames for targeting students.

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